


the fallen

by cat_salad



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Apocalypse, Freak Survival, Gen, Grave digging, Hyuuga Hinata & Yamanaka Ino Friendship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Infinite Tsukuyomi, Minor Character Death, Survival, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, burial, survivor's guilt, this character would normally have died but somehow survived
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 11:56:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14748395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_salad/pseuds/cat_salad
Summary: she has to remember that these were once living breathing people too,with hopes and dreams and ambitions and personalities and friends and lovers.She needs to remember the fallen, needs to remember her friends names--She needs to find everyone.





	the fallen

**Author's Note:**

> all i can say is that this has been sitting around in my writing scraps for years now, ever since the concept of Infinite Tsukuyomi was introduced. I wanted to write something dark and angsty and there were doodles to match the writing. I think it just really all came from me using this one spade for a whole summer and thinking about apocalyptic terrain~

The spade feels rough and unbalanced in her hands, clumsily dragging through the dirt as she piles sand and rubble and earth. The spade's metal is rusting and chipped in places, the pole a dusty wood, with hairline fractures peppered along its length. The wooden handle blisters her hands, leaves small cuts and splinters and agitates callouses that were there long, long before she'd started digging hours ago.   
  
A trickle of blood lies drying on the spade from where she'd been cut on her hand, or maybe it's someone else's gore decorating her spade. It's been too long since she'd started digging and piling earth in a sluggish daze (too many corpses to bury).   
  
Deeming the amount of earthrubbledirtjunk good enough, she sticks the spade down next to her, and goes about finding a slab of concrete big enough to write the body's name on.   
  
For the bodies whose name she didn't know she just carved their countries' symbol. There were so many who she didn't know. If they had a particular trademark weapon though, she would stab it down into the ground next to their plate. Maybe someone would know who it was, give the body a name.   
  
Or maybe she was the only survivor, tasked with burying all the war's dead.   
  
Bodies had names. Sure, they didn't need them now, but she has to remember that these were once living breathing people too, with hopes and dreams and ambitions and personalities and friends and lovers. She needs to remember the fallen, needs to remember her friends names, not the way their faces looked when dead, what mangled position they were in when she found them. Not the state of decay they were in. (The flies and maggots and _god_ ).  
  
This body's identity, she does know.   
  
Soon enough she finds a cracked slab of metal that would suffice as a tombstone and returns to the grave. She sits down, doesn't even react to the horrible twinges in her thighs and knees as she falls to her knees a little too sloppily. She's not tired. She's not allowed to be. She can rest --break down-- later: when she's buried all the bodies, … when she's collected all her friends.   
  
_Yamanaka Ino, Leaf_ she carves into the metal, fingers flickering blue with scraps of chakra.   
  
She frowns, eyes a little blurry as she has to scrape the last of her chakra reserves to write down Ino's name. She tries not to think about feeling anything. (Tries not to think about her long blonde silky hair, the way it had still felt so soft and alive in her hands when she'd handled her body, tries not to think about her infectious laugh, her gentle smile as she talks through her relationship woes). She has a task to do, so she can't get distracted and think about how she just really wants to curl up in a ball and cry and die.   
  
She needs to find everyone.

 

* * *

 

  
If Madara had taken his time and killed them off one by one, then she wouldn't have been standing here, in front of Naruto's grave.

If he had Naruto wouldn't have had a grave. Nor Ino. Nor Kiba. She starts to shake; it's not the cold though. Neji. Sakura. Chouji. Lee. Her vision starts to swim, not because of dust in her eyes, and she clamps down on the tears wanting to spill. No. (She hadn't been able to find any of the others, but when she'd found Tenten's body stuck in a tree four miles away she didn't really need to search any further to know that the rest were probably also dead.)

**Author's Note:**

> i have crippling depression nya
> 
> anyway there was supposed to be a continuation of this where Hinata eventually finds Sai, Shikamaru and Shino & uuuhhhh Temari and they were going to a) find more survivors and b) go after Madara (because he would be in a weakened state after Infinite Tsukuyomi) but yeah that's not realistically gonna happen.


End file.
